Hester Lynch Piozzi. June, 1804.
In the East part of the church yard, are the remains of a small stone edifice called St. Colman’s Chapel. It stands East and West, its length is thirty feet, and its breadth nineteen.
A manuscript in the British Museum, which appears to have belonged to Sir James Ware, as I apprehend some notes upon it are in his writing, (No. LI of the Clarendon Collection 4796,) contains a very curious account of the ancient celebrity of Cloyne as a place of sepulchre, followed by a tedious enumeration of the lands given to the See, in purchase for places of interment: it commences thus -
“In the life of Ryyan it is sett downe, that the best blouds of Ireland have choosen their bodyes to be buried in Cluaine, which choice, for that Ryyan had such power being a holy bishop through the will of God, that what soules harboured in the bodies buried under that dust may never be adjudged to damnation, wherefore those of the said bloud have divided the church yard amongst themselves by the consent of Ryyan and his holy clearks.”
A specimen of the other parts of this manuscript, may be acceptable, as I believe it has never before been noticed, I shall therefore give a short extract with the conclusion: “Thus hath Mac Carthy, first Great Finyn Mac Carthy pay’d for his sepulture there viz. for a proportion of nyne cells or chapels, that is to say 48 daies[29] for every chapell, the chapels were these, Kill Kyran in Desmond, Kill Cluain, Kill Torssair and Killatbebhe, and the other five kills of cells cannot be reade.” &c.
“And it was the Bishop Muirchertagh O’Muridhe, that caused this to be written and drawen out of the auncient life of Ryyan in this easie language, fearing least it should be obscured or lost, together with what other things yt were bestowed upon Cluain during his life, when the year of ye Lord was 20, three hundred and a thousand years, uppon the stone of whose tomb was engraven in Irish, Muriertach O’Murrid Bishop of Clone, head of all * * (one word which cannot be deciphered) Shanan his foster brother erected this stone monument for him.”
“The Friary of Kilconnell mentioned in this life,” (says a note which I take to be by Sir James Ware,) “founded about the year 1400, sheweth there is a mistake in the yeare here set downe. Qy. if it should not be 1420?”
The round tower
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is on the opposite side of the street from the church, situated, as these buildings almost invariably are, near the west door. Miss Nicholson’s drawing will convey a better idea of this curious structure, than a description however minute could do. Whilst engaged in sketching the tower, Miss Nicholson was surrounded by more than a hundred of the inhabitants, who flocked to the spot with a curiosity so great as scarcely to be credited, and, to use her own words, “closed on me with such overwhelming pressure, that I could scarcely draw either that or my breath.”
This building received considerable damage from lightning: the following account of which is chiefly collected from Dr. Smith’s County History. Bishop Berkeley also relates the circumstance in a letter dated the 2d February, 1749. A thunder storm with lightning passed through the county Cork, on the night of the 10th January, 1749, in a line from west to east, and after killing some cows in a field south of Cork, struck the round tower of Cloyne used as a belfry to its cathedral. The electric matter first rent the vaulted arch at the top, threw down the great bell presented by Dean Davies, together with the three lofts, and, descending perpendicularly
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to the lowest floor, forced its way, with a violent explosion, through one side of the tower, and drove some of the stones, which were admirably well jointed and locked into each other, through the roof of a neighbouring stable. The door, though held by a strong iron lock, was thrown to a distance of sixty yards and shattered to pieces, and a few pigeons that used to roost in the top of the steeple were scorched to death, not a feather being left unsinged. The conical stone roof destroyed by this accident was never replaced, but the height of the tower was lowered more than six feet, and an embattlement substituted. The stones of which the tower is composed have been mostly brought from the sea shore, and were prepared with much care, though about half way up the building there is an evident difference in the stones themselves as well as in the mode of placing them. The steps to the door are modern, like the embattlement; for these towers, whatever may have been their use, were entered by means of a rope or ladder, the door being generally eight or nine feet from the ground. In this at Cloyne it is about thirteen, and at Kilmacduagh, in the county Galway, no less than twenty-four. The height of the Round Tower of Cloyne is stated to be ninety-two feet, and the thickness of the wall forty-three inches: the first story has projecting stones for the joists of a floor to rest upon.
The Bishop’s Palace adjoins the town, and was rebuilt in the early part of the last century by Bishop Crowe, a descendant of the notorious Sir Sackville Crowe. It is an old fashioned and clumsy building, without any claims to architectural beauty; but, as the residence of the amiable Bishop Berkeley, possesses a superior attraction: the most profound metaphysician of his time, he was distinguished by the disinterestedness of his character and the purity of his mind, and truly merited the commendation of Pope, who ascribes To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven.””;
Alexander Pope
His Essay on the Virtues of Tar-water was perhaps his most popular
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work. This discovery excited an extraordinary sensation in the medical world, and tar-water, for a considerable period, was administered as an infallible specific for almost every complaint. - But it may be considered impertinent to dwell on the life and writings of one so well known as Berkeley. - When appointed Bishop of Cloyne, in 1733, he gave up the distinguished circles of London in which he had moved, and became the constant resident of a remote and inconsiderable town in Ireland, where, with real patriotism, he expended within his diocese the income derived from it; and his exertions to improve the habits and condition of the people by whom he was surrounded render him as illustrious an example to Irishmen of rank and property, as do his studies and inquiring habits to those engaged in literary or scientific pursuits. [30]
The bishop’s demesne is rather picturesque, and considered to be the most fertile land in the district. Some fine ash-trees that overhang a pretty dell afford the artist good studies of close scenery, improved by jutting masses of well-coloured rock. In the grounds, not far from the palace, are the entrances of two natural limestone caverns, into neither of which it was possible to advance far, both being choked up by weeds and filled with water. The ancient name of this spot was Monelusky, or the Field of Caverns; and the names of the adjacent grounds speak the savageness of the place in early times; Knocknamodree is the Hill of the Gray Dog or Wolf; Park na Drislig, the Field of Briers; Monecranisky, the Meadow of the Wild Boars. Of the hills surrounding the town, that on the north is called Bohermore, or the Great Highway, from a tradition that a road passed over it, from the sea on the south to the sea on the north of the kingdom. [31] The hill on the north is Knocknamodree, or the
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Hill of the Wolf, already mentioned; and to the north-east is Curloum, or the Hill with the naked Turn, which expresses its present appearance with much precision.
Cloyne is indebted to Bishop Crowe for its poor-school; the original foundation was endowed by that prelate for twelve boys. The present number of children exceeds seventy, boys and girls, and the system followed appears to be that recommended by the Society for Promoting National Education.
Bishop Crowe is stated to have expended a large sum of money on the improvement of Cloyne, and he recovered for the see the lands of Donoughmore, containing 8000 acres. The value of the bishoprick is now estimated at between six and seven thousand pounds per annum. Ecclesiastical property, however, has felt the fluctuation of the times. During the Reformation, the Church of England suffered severely in its temporal affairs, more than half the clerical property in the kingdom being vested in lay hands; but that of Ireland was in a manner annihilated. Bishopricks, colleges, glebes and tithes were divided without mercy amongst the great men of the time, or leased out on small rents for ever to the friends and
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relations of the incumbents. Many Irish bishopricks never recovered this devastation, as Aghadoe, Kilfenora and others. The Bishoprick of Ferns was left not worth one shilling. Killala, the best in Ireland, was worth only 300l. per annum; Clonfert, 200l.; the Archbishoprick of Cashel, 100l.; Waterford, 100l.; Cork, only 70l.; Ardagh, 1l. 1s. 8d.; and the rest at even a lower rate. Cloyne, situated at a distance from the capital, an appendage to the neighbouring see of Cork, and without head or guardian, had very little chance of escaping in the general plunder; the out-lying estates of the see became immediately the prey of the nobility near them. The Earl of Cork seized the manor of Inchiquin; Lord Barrymore formed pretensions to Kilcolman: Lord Clancarty got possession of Donoughmore, and the family of the Fitzgeralds, who were extremely powerful, and had already obtained the manor and greater part of the burgery of Cloyne, cast their eyes on the remaining possessions of the see. As the plan was a bold one, it was necessary to proceed with caution. In order to make the leases of the bishop’s lands valid in those days, it was proper to have them confirmed by the dean and chapter, the church having thus, as it were, two securities that estates should not be wantonly granted away.
To surmount this difficulty, Maurice Fitzgerald, though a layman, had himself appointed to the deanery of Cloyne, and filled the chapter with his dependents; lay prebends as well as deans being not uncommon in the time of Queen Elizabeth. He then applied to Roger Skiddy, Bishop-elect of Cork and Cloyne, to grant him the possessions of the latter in fee-farm, to which Skiddy is said to have consented in 1557; but there seems to have been some irregularity or obstacle to the quiet succession both of Skiddy, who is stated to have resigned in 1566, and Dixon, who was deprived in 1571; so that it was not until eighteen years after this that the business was perfected, when Mathew Shehan, who was then bishop, in consideration of 40l. (equal to 500l. at present), leased out, on the 14th July, 1575, at the annual rent of five marks, for ever, the whole demesne of
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Cloyne (four plough lands), with six other plough lands, the extended value of which must be now nearly 5000l. per annum, and an inscribed stone in the wall of the palace, which is here copied, seems to have been set up immediately after the Fitzgeralds obtained possession, as an evidence of their right.
In order to give some colour to the transaction, it was performed in this manner: Bishop Shehan granted the fee-farm of all the temporalities of the see of Cloyne for ever to Richard Fitz Maurice and his heirs on the above conditions. The dean and chapter, under their common seal, confirmed the grant, and then Fitz Maurice, who seems to have been merely an agent, is stated to have sold his right and title to Master John Fitz Gerald of Cloyne.
Bishop Lyon, who succeeded Shehan in 1606, was the first Protestant bishop, and held the united sees of Cork, Cloyne and Ross; he is said to have been in the naval service, and having distinguished himself by his valour, was promised promotion to the first situation which should become vacant in the gift of the crown; this happening to be the bishoprick of Cork, he was appointed to it. As an ecclesiastic, he was more esteemed for his benevolence and charity than for eloquence or learning. Almost the only sermon Bishop Lyon was ever known to have delivered being a very laconic one on the death of Queen Elizabeth, the language of which would have better suited the quarter-deck than the pulpit of a cathedral. Lithgow, the Scotch pilgrim, who visited Ireland in I6l9 seems to allude to the appointment of this ecclesiastic in his complaint against the corruption of the time. “Yea,” exclaims he, “and rude-bred soldiers, whose education was at the musket-mouth, are become church-men!”
Bishop Lyon, in 1618, petitioned council unsuccessfully for a
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restoration of the see-lands of Cloyne; and the fee-farm rent being all the property he derived from the see, he was nicknamed “Episcopus quinque marcorum.” In this hopeless situation, the interference of a higher power gave a favourable turn to the cause. The ravages of the Irish church, which had been carried on in the most open manner during the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI. and Elizabeth, and more covertly, though almost as effectually, in the time of James I. were stopped on the accession of Charles I.; and it is to the credit of this prince not only to have checked this disgraceful and ruinous practice, but, in many instances, to have forced the plunderers to make restitution. Lord Strafford, a minister of great virtues, as well as great faults, had the honour of saving the remains of the Irish church. He found it, on his arrival in 1631, in a state of ruin: many of the bishoprics, as Ferns, Lismore and Cloyne, entirely destroyed, and the revenues of the others reduced to a trifle; the churches pulled down, or in a state of desolation, and the glebes and tithes in the hands of laymen; so that one nobleman in the western part of the kingdom (the Earl of Clanricarde) had no less than 100 livings in his own possession; and the Earl of Cork, in the south, besides all the landed estates of Lismore and the College of Youghall, had impropriated all the livings belonging to both of them.
The lord deputy began first to recover the lands which had been usurped from the bishoprics, and the mode he seems to have adopted for this purpose was by no means destitute of equity. He threatened the possessors with inquiring strictly into their titles, and fining them severely for their injustice if any fraud should be discovered; but, to such as were willing to resign their fee-farms and consent to take a fresh lease from the see, at a higher and more equitable rent, though still very advantageous to the tenant, he promised to prevail on the bishops to grant such leases for the term of sixty years, thus, in fact, allowing the lessees a reasonable advantage
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for any improvement they might have made on the lands, but reserving the lands themselves for the benefit of the church.
The title-deeds and other papers belonging to the see of Cloyne, being either lost or intentionally destroyed by the Fitzgeralds, while the see was in the possession of that family, there is no early record now in the registry except that called “Pipam Colmani,” which is a list of the estates and manors belonging to the bishopric in 1364. It was composed by order of Bishop Swaffham, who was a Carmelite monk and a great opponent of Wickliffe, and who seems to have had some political importance in his day, being deputed by the parliament, in conjunction with the Bishop of Meath, the Prior of St. John’s, and Sir R. Holwood, Baron of the Exchequer, to sail to England and lay the state of the kingdom before Richard II. This document was missing when Smith wrote his history of Cork, and is said to have been recovered by accident some years after. Sir James Ware expressly mentions that it was not to be found when he wrote. The earliest paper except this is a sort of voluntary deposition by James Fitz John Gerald of Ballyfin, dated 1635, purporting to give evidence of the ancient state of the town. The evidence goes to prove that Bishop Francis Daniel, about 1260, gave the burial-ground and passed the manor, with many immunities, to the citizens and burgesses of Cloyne, they paying certain sums agreed upon by Bishop David, his predecessor; that a charter was then solemnly given to the inhabitants; that the city was divided into English Town or Street, and Irish Town or Street; the manorhouse stood near the church, the bishops not having a foot of land reserved in the town; that the bishop’s house was in Irish Street, but of late, in the last Sir John’s time, they had got one in English Street, &c. The authority of this paper was considered by the late Bishop Bennett doubtful, because brought forward by one of the parties interested in usurping the property, and alluding to transactions stated to have occurred nearly 400 years before, unsupported
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by any evidence but hearsay tradition deposed by one of the possessors of the ground, and the paper being produced or fabricated at the very time when Lord Strafford was beginning to question the Fitzgeralds’ title to the estates of the see, and being the only record left in the registry. Bishop Bennett has collected many curious particulars respecting the history of the see of Cloyne, which he directed should be given, on his death, to the Registry, for the use of his successors, and of this manuscript, for the communication of which I am indebted to the Rev. Francis Kirchhoffer, I have freely availed myself in compiling the present paper.
Of the caves in the neighbourhood of Cloyne, I particularly visited that called Carrig a crump; the entrance is in a limestone quarry belonging to the Messrs. Fitzgerald, where the stone used in building the new quays and custom-house at Cork has been chiefly raised. One of the proprietors, with much kindness, furnished me with lights and a very original personage named Larry to serve as a guide.
The descent was difficult, through a narrow and steep crevice of the rock, and the footing extremely slippery. At the end of this passage was a perpendicular fall of about seven feet. My guide sprung nimbly down into the profundity of gloom that expanded before us, and I followed by throwing myself into his arms. Proceeding a short distance, the cave became higher and more extensive, and we advanced some way, stepping from one large mass of stone to another, the bases of which were completely concealed by deep water. As our lights were, in many places, but sufficient to make “darkness visible,” Larry, when I moved before him, repeatedly begged “my honour not to be too bould.” We soon found ourselves in a chamber of considerable size, the roof of which seemed supported by a ponderous stalactical pillar, on a base proportionably massive, ornamented with clustering knobs of small stalactites that hung over each other like hands with the fingers spread out. Above, appeared gloomy galleries with entrances resembling rich Gothic
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archways, but we were without the means of ascent, and consequently unable to explore any of them. Whilst I was gazing upwards, my guide, with a true knowledge of effect, placed the lights on the opposite side of the central pillar to that on which I stood, leaving me in darkness, and illuminating half the chamber. Under this management, a projecting point of rock, without much effort of fancy, assumed the appearance of a colossal figure in repose, leaning on a club, that, to the vivid imagination, might seem the genius of the cave, slumbering in his favourite grotto of spar.
We turned away into another part of the cave, adorned with fewer stalactites and somewhat circular in shape; nearly in the centre, a single stalactical column rose with an air of elegant lightness out of water, the cool and sparkling appearance of which can be assimilated only to liquid crystal. Having succeeded in crossing it, we ascended a kind of terrace, so smooth and level as almost to appear artificial, where lay two circular masses of spar resembling fragments of an enormous broken column; from this terrace four or five passages struck off, but they were so full of deep water and so narrow that I did not venture down any of them. Larry, however, whilst I remained on the terrace, had penetrated some distance into the largest, and commenced whistling an old Irish ditty, the effect of which appeared to me where I stood, as if many flutes were playing in unison. My guide spoke of a passage into a large chamber which he called “the White Hall”; but it was so narrow, low and muddy, he recommended my not exploring it. On my return I passed near the entrance by which the cave had been formerly visited. It was, I understood, of such dimensions that a man on horseback might ride in some distance; but the falling of a quantity of earth had closed up this mouth, and it was not without repeated efforts that we emerged from darkness into daylight. The cave of Carrig a crump is little known, even to those resident in its immediate vicinity; its extent is probably very great, yet few I believe have penetrated much
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farther than I did. A story is related, but with slight claims to belief, of a trumpeter, belonging to a dragoon regiment quartered in Cloyne, being left behind by a party of his comrades, with whom he had entered one of the passages in the Bishop’s Meadow, and the next morning surprizing the labourers in Carrig a crump quarry by the sound of his bugle issuing from the crevices of the rock, to which instrument he was indebted for his preservation, as they immediately extricated him, after having travelled in his subterranean journey about a mile in a direct line.
Throughout the whole of this district the limestone rock abounds with natural caverns, and, in 1805, a curious discovery was made not far from Castle Martyr by a quarry-man, in consequence of his crow-bar having accidentally fallen through a fissure of the rock; he widened the aperture and descended in search of the instrument into a cavern, where he was not a little surprized to behold a human skeleton, partly covered with exceedingly thin plates of stamped or embossed gold, connected by bits of wire; he also found several amber beads. The annexed sketch of one of these gold plates is the same size as the original, which is in the possession of Mr. Lecky of Cork, with the fragments of a bead. The remainder of the gold was sold and melted in Cork and Youghall, and a jeweller who purchased the greater part told me the quantity he had melted to use his own words was “rather more than the contents of half a coal-box.”
The bones of the skeleton were eagerly sought after by the superstitious peasantry, as those of St. Colman, and carried away for charms: there is a tradition in the country, of a battle having been fought near this spot in a very remote period, and of four kings having fallen in the conflict. It is, perhaps, worth remarking, that the first account
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of this discovery appeared in the Moniteur of the 25th August, 1806, and was copied thence into the Irish provincial papers.
Not far distant from Cloyne is Castle Mary - a seat belonging to the Longfield family: it was formerly called Carrig Cotta, supposed to be a corruption of Carrig Croith, or the Rock of the Sun, from a cromlech or Druidical altar, that is still to be seen not far from the house. This remain of paganism consists of a rough and massive stone, twelve feet in length: one end elevated about six feet from the ground, by two smaller stones, from which its name of Cromlech, signifying a bending or inclined stone, is derived. Close by it is a smaller stone or altar, supported in a similar diagonal position by a single stone. There is a tradition that nothing will grow under either of these altars, an opinion that originates from the total absence of verdure, incident to a want of sufficient light and air. The top of the larger altar was richly covered with the plant familiarly called the Wood Geranium, (Geranium Robertianum, or Robert’s Crane’s Bill,) the light feathery leaves and delicate pink blossoms of which, formed a pleasing contrast to the solemnity and breadth of the altar.
The plantations of Castle Mary are venerable and extensive, arranged in the taste of the last century: few situations can be more imposing or romantic than that of the Druid’s Altar, the descent to which is overshadowed by some luxuriant ash trees of singularly beautiful form and growth; the gigantic size attained by some, surprizes the English traveller, and their long graceful branches, reaching to the ground, produce an effect not unlike the famed banyan groves of the east. Whilst Miss Nicholson was sketching the altar, a figure emerged from this depth of foliage, in costume, which, had it been a tint whiter, might well have passed for that of a Hindoo - but the innocent deception was soon destroyed by the irresistible accent in which the following exclamation was uttered, after coolly surveying that lady’s work and the subject of it.
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“Och! fait, and sure the darlint lady isn’t putting down the ould stones - may be! and as like as themselves it is, long life to her! well to be sure, and a power of trouble to be taking - a wisha God help us!”
Rostellan, the other principal seat in the neighbourhood of Cloyne, is that of the Marquis of Thomond, and commands a noble view of Cork Harbour, of which it forms part of the eastern shore. The present house is built upon the site of a castle of the Fitzgeralds, and contains a small armoury. “The sword of the great Brian Boru, my lord’s ancestor, King of all Munster, your honour, and his fowling-piece! are there to be seen,” said one of the gate-keepers, who accompanied us through the grounds, and seemed anxious to display the wonders of the place to strangers. [32] This anachronism of assigning to an old musket a period of four or five centuries before its probable construction, is amusing enough, were it not so very common in Ireland; for Fion Mac Cuil, (the Fingal of Ossian,) St. Patrick, and Brian Boru, are personages to whom anything ancient, wonderful or curious, is without hesitation referred. Queen Ann granted to one of the former Earls of Inchiquin, by letters-patent, dated 20th April, 1708, with many privileges, to the manor of Rostellan, a considerable portion of land adjoining, which his lordship had embanked from the tide.
On a terrace close to the water is a statue of Lord Hawke, chiefly remarkable from its position, the admiral’s face being turned away from the element on which he had acquired his fame; Sir Richard Hoare, in his Irish Tour, relates the following anecdote as the cause:
“Upon the defeat of the French fleet commanded by Conflans, in the year 17 59, the city of Cork ordered a statue to be cast of the English admiral Hawke; but on its completion, some objections were made by the citizens, upon which the noble Inchiquin said, ’that he would pay for it;’ which he did, and, as a rebuke, placed the admiral’s
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figure on a pedestal with his back turned towards the ungrateful city. Mr. O’Brien,” continues Sir Richard, “told me a curious circumstance relating to this same statue, and which, in a less enlightened age than the present, might have been considered as ominous; that the admiral’s right arm which grasped a sword, fell off on the very day that the French landed on the coast of Ireland at Bantry Bay.”
The O’Briens are one of the few original Irish families, that a series of revolutions have not entirely deprived of possessions in their native country. Until the reign of Henry VIII., they were distinguished as kings of Thomond, when the hereditary heir to the title, being a child, was dispossessed by his uncle Murrough, according to an ancient and barbarous Irish custom named Tannistry, a species of popular election of leaders or chiefs, that gave the right of possession to the strongest; as a living poet has happily defined it:
1. the simple plan,
That they should take, who had the power,
And they should keep who can
a custom finally abolished by James I., in 1605. From this event perhaps the present Irish motto of the O’Briens originates, literally in English, “The strong hand uppermost,” which has been absurdly enough rendered “Vigueur du dessus.”
King Murrough, feeling the insecurity of the title he had usurped, when his nephew Donough arrived at years of maturity, determined on surrendering it to the King of England, and of securing a lesser dignity, in which he was encouraged by the English governor of Ireland, who was anxious to destroy the feeling of monarchical independence. Murrough accordingly sailed for England, where he arrived on the 3d June, 1543, and waited upon Henry VIII. at his palace at Greenwich, to whom he formally resigned his pretensions to royalty, and received in lieu the title of Earl of Thomond for his own life,
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and Baron of Inchiquin for his descendants, by letters-patent dated the 1st July, following; at the same time covenanting to assimilate to English manners, to obey the English laws, and to cause his children to be instructed in the English language. Donough, the nephew of Murrough, was also created by Henry, to prevent any future disputes, Baron of Ibrackan for himself and male issue, and Earl of Thomond for life on the decease of his uncle. After some severe family feuds, which were suppressed by the interference of Lord Sussex, Donough, Baron of Ibrackan, succeeded his uncle as Earl of Thomond, and received a new patent of nobility from Edward VI., continuing the title of Thomond to his heirs, whilst that of Inchiquin remained to the descendants of his uncle. The illustrious actions and descent of the O’Briens have been a favourite theme with the bards of Ireland. At the commencement of the seventeenth century, most of the senachies in the kingdom were engaged in a poetical controversy respecting the claims to superiority between the great northern family of O’Neal and the great southern one of O’Brien, a subject on which several thousand verses were employed. These have been collected, and are termed by Irish scholars, “the Contention of the Bards”; the contest arose out of a composition of Teige Mac Daire’s, who was retained as poet by Donogh O’Brien, the fourth Earl of Thomond, and was answered by Louis O’Clery, poet to O’Neal. Rejoinder and reply almost innumerable ensued, and the majority of the bards of that period became involved in the dispute.
The most prominent member of the O’Brien family in Irish history since the conquest by England, was Murrough, the sixth baron of Inchiquin; but he appears to have been so ambitious, selfish, and time-serving a character, that it is impossible either to admire him, or become interested in his fortunes. Lord Inchiquin married a daughter of Sir William St. Leger, the President of Munster, whose attachment to the unfortunate Charles I., and stability of principle, is a noble contrast to the veering conduct of Lord Inchiquin. On the death of
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his father-in-law, Lord Inchiquin, being disappointed in his expectations of succeeding to the presidency, declared for the parliamentary party, and accepted an important command under them, meanly endeavouring to conceal his mortification, and account for the change of his political creed, by a variety of insignificant excuses.
From what can be collected, Lord Inchiquin’s career during the civil war was intemperate in the highest degree, “not sparing his own kindred,” says Ludlow, “but if he found them faulty,” (that is, in arms for the cause he had abandoned,) “hanging them up without distinction.” His “memorable service” at Cashel partakes of the same spirit, where, regarding neither sex nor age, three thousand were put to the sword by his orders; and the priests, literally torn from the altars of God, were butchered before them in the cathedral. Had Lord Inchiquin acted from the enthusiastic feeling of the times, his character would have retrieved itself on the page of history, for he was personally brave and frequently victorious; but he seems to have studiously corrupted the well-inclined, and endeavoured to elevate himself by undermining the nobleness of others.
The parliament of England, feeling that no dependence could be placed on such a man, voted him a traitor the 14th April, 1649: and Charles II., with a view of creating a revolution in his favour, immediately by letters from the Hague appointed him President of Munster; but the soldiers under his command, disgusted by the inconsistency of his conduct, revolted. Lord Inchiquin, for safety, fled to France, and was soon after raised by Charles to the dignity of an earl; on whose restoration, when the claims of unbroken allegiance were unrewarded, the sum of 8000l. was bestowed on Lord Inchiquin - “as a mark of his majesty’s favourable and gracious consideration of his losses and sufferings.”
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Architecture and ancient buildings
1. O tract of tyme, that all consumes to dust,
We hold thee not, for thou art bald behinde:
The fairest sword, or mettall, thou wilt rust,
And brightest things bring quickly out of minde.
The trimmest towers, and castles great and gay
In processe long at length thou doest decay:
The bravest house, and princely buildings rare
Thou wasts and weares and leaves the walles but bare.
Thomas Churchyard’s Worthines of Wales.The Worthines of Wales (1587), a valuable antiquarian work in prose and verse, anticipating Michael Drayton.
In the foregoing papers considerable space has been devoted to descriptions of such architectural antiquities as have come under my immediate observation. Monuments of former ages are identified with national history, and are objects, not only of interest but importance to every country, as the unquestionable and faithful record of the past. The character of nations and of governments lives in the edifices reared under them; and had the annals of Egypt, of Greece, or of Rome descended to us without the glorious structures that still ennoble these fallen countries, how many casuists would have flung the odium of barbarism on their former population!
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The origin of the Irish round tower is involved in as profound obscurity as that of the Egyptian pyramids, and if the latter extraordinary monuments excite our curiosity in a country where the same gigantic taste pervaded every work of sculpture as well as architecture, how much more impressive is this solitary remain, that stands
1. Sublime and sad,
Bearing the weight of years!
A recent writer on the subject, warmed into enthusiastic declamation, apostrophises - “The unrivalled pillar tower in all its primitive beauty, venerated, undisturbed, and, after a reign of fourteen hundred years, still the pride and the ornament of modern, as it heretofore had been of ancient Ireland.”
Beside these buildings, of which more than fifty are at present standing, none others in Ireland deserve notice as works of art, the date of whose formation is not known. On the Round Tower, therefore, rests the only proof of the skill and knowledge of the early inhabitants of Ireland: ponderous masses of uncouth stones, tumuli and mounds being works equally common to the rude state of other nations.
The vulgar belief that these pillar towers were the produce of supernatural agency has been already mentioned. “Travellers into the east,” says Sir Joshua Reynolds in his Discourses, “tell us that when the ignorant inhabitants of these countries are interrogated concerning the ruins of stately edifices yet remaining amongst them, the melancholy monuments of their former grandeur and long lost science, they always answer that they were built by magicians. The untaught mind finds a vast gulph between its own powers and those works of complicated art, which it is utterly unable to fathom, and it supposes that such a void can only be passed by supernatural means.”
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The conjectures offered as to the use of the Round Tower are at once numerous and unsatisfactory. [33] By some they are supposed to have been the abodes of solitary anchorites; by others, to have contained the sacred fire worshipped before the Christian era; some, again, maintain that they were places of temporary penance, and others state them to have been belfries; nor does any peculiarity of situation, except the vicinity of a church, assist the antiquary in his inquiry. It may be tiresome, and would answer little purpose, to recapitulate the various arguments produced in favour of these several opinions, but the latter, that of their being belfries, is the one commonly received.
It is needless also to enter into particular descriptions, as the drawings and measurement of those at Cloyne and Ardmore convey a general idea of Irish round towers, and embrace the most remarkable difference between them, that of circular stone belts, which are rather unusual. All that seems certain about these buildings is, their existence before the invasion of the English in the time of Henry II. as Giraldus Cambrensis expressly mentions “turres ecclesiasticæ, quæ more patrio arctæ sunt et altæ necnon et rotundæ.” From their very great similarity it is evident that they were the work of the same age and the same people, and they have been attributed to the missionaries who first introduced Christianity into Ireland. There are many almost conclusive arguments in favour of this conjecture; one, however, which I have not heard, is, that every round tower has
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its patron saint, whose legendary fame still survives in the surrounding districts as well as in old chronicles: St. Colman and St. Declan are the tutelary guardians of those at Cloyne and Ardmore.
After the round towers should be noticed the oratories, or stoneroofed chapels, so often to be found near them. These are very small heavy buildings, with wedge-like shaped roofs of stone, of which the one at Killaloe affords a characteristic specimen.
When King Henry II. visited Dublin in 1171, we are told by historians that there was no house there capable of containing that monarch’s retinue; “and therefore,” to use the words of Sir Richard Cox, “he was necessitated to build a long cabin with smoothed wattles after the fashion of the country, and almost in the nature of a tent, which (being well furnished with plate, household stuff and good cheer) made a better appearance than ever had been seen in Ireland before that time, and accordingly it was admired and applauded by the Irish potentates, who flocked thither to pay their duty to the king.”
Having such models as the round tower, it is evident that the want of stone buildings in Ireland cannot be ascribed to ignorance. Sir John Davies appears to point at the real cause in the customs of tannistry and gavelkind, both of which rendered the inheritance and division of property a matter of much uncertainty, and the cause of frequent disputes. It was certainly, remarks that writer, “against all common sense and reason” to expect any man “would plant, or improve, or build upon that land which a stranger whom he knew not should possess after his death.”
The English adventurers seem, immediately after their landing, to have built castles for their defence and the protection of the districts they had overcome, there being few if any fortifications in the country the work of the Irish. The towns of Dublin, Cork and Waterford were walled, and probably founded by the Danes. The Irish appear to have been the inhabitants of forests and of mountains, where they
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dwelt in a kind of savage freedom, despising restraint, from their ignorance of its advantage.
When Sir John De Courcy, one of the first English settlers who built many castles in the north of Ireland, gave two of them as a mark of friendship to Mac Mahon, a native chieftain, the latter almost immediately destroyed these buildings, declaring that he valued not stones like land, and that it was contrary to his nature to live within cold walls whilst the green woods were within his reach. Story mentions that the first castle ever built in Ireland, “as to any pile of lime and stone,” was at Tuam, in the year 1161, by Roderick O’Connor, which was called, on account of its rarity, “Castrum Mirificum.” So long after this as 1584, Stanihurst tells us that such of the Irish chieftains as possessed castles annexed to them a large mud cabin, in which they dwelt, only retreating to the castle at night for security. To the present day the same feeling exists; and it is no uncommon circumstance for a peasant, on a principle of comfort, to strip the slates off the cottage of which lie has become the tenant and replace them with thatch, alleging as his reason “the couldness of the slates,” though most probably, owing to his slovenly method of thatching, the wind and rain are admitted through numerous crevices. To an English observer this practice must appear absurd - but it is nevertheless characteristic.
“The fern forms and fern tables” of O’Neil, spread under the stately canopy of heaven, are mentioned by Sir John Harrington, who wrote about fifteen years after Stanihurst.
Dr. Smith, in his History of Cork, gives an inscription discovered on a chimney-piece in throwing down some old walls at Castle Lyons. “Lehan O’Cullane Hoc fecit MCIIII.” This has been repeatedly produced as proof that stone dwellings were used by the Irish in the twelfth century; but the inscription on which an assertion so important has been grounded appears to me either to have been inaccurately copied, the C being substituted for D, or that letter having
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been reversed in the original, thus , and the perpendicular line defaced, as neither the style nor expression of this legend belongs to the period to which Dr. Smith would refer it; had it been engraven at that time, the characters (waving the probability of the inscription being in Irish) could not have been deciphered with so much facility by the Doctor; and if the reading of 1504 be admitted it will be found in accordance with the taste and manner of that age.
From the landing of the English, down to the time of Elizabeth, castles rapidly multiplied in Ireland - the English settlers gradually connected themselves with the natives and assimilated to most of their habits; but the Irish seem to have availed themselves of the English mode of defence, and at every opportunity to have destroyed or possessed themselves of the castles and fortifications formed by the English colonists, whom they regarded as invaders, and from whose dominion they sought, by a series of insurrections, to emancipate themselves.
In 1438 an act was passed directing the inclosure of all towns and villages within the Pale, as a protection against the frequent attacks of the Irish.
The achievements of Thomas O’Reilly, a native chieftain, who ruined no less than eighteen castles belonging to the English, are celebrated in some Irish verses still extant, commencing “The wailing of the English mourner over the losses of Englishmen is a sound that I lament not.” And when the town of Athenry in the county Galway was burned by a party of Irish in the reign of Elizabeth, whose fury spared not even the church, the leader, on being told that this building contained the bones of his mother, ferociously replied, “I care not - were she alive I would sooner burn her and it together than that any English churl should fortify there.” It was even proposed in the parliament assembled at Dublin by James II. during his last struggle for the crown of England, and the motion is upon record, “that all the fine houses and every thing that looked
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like improvement should be destroyed,” that Ireland might thus seem a country unworthy of conquest. Notwithstanding this system of destruction, every defile became protected and every important position occupied by towers that, in a time when the art of gunnery was imperfectly understood, appeared to present impregnable barriers. These fortresses, though numerous, were inconsiderable, and few of them now deserve notice except as picturesque and romantic objects.
From some elevated stations the ruins of so many as ten or twelve castles may be often comprehended in the same view. When one of these towers is within sight of another, the peasant who follows the visitor usually relates a traditionary anecdote of their being built by two sisters who held a kind of telegraphic communication. Dean Story has recorded the legend with great minuteness: “they say,” writes that author, “in former times two Brehons, or Irish judges, lived in those two castles, who happened at last to have some disputes about their properties, and their wives, though they were sisters, used to stand upon the battlements of their own houses and scold at one another for several hours together: which at length one of them being weary of, she found out a trick only to appear and begin the fray, then she would place an image that she had dressed up in her own clothes in such a posture as her sister could not discern it from herself at that distance, who not sensible of the cheat, used to scold on, and at last fretted herself to death because she could not be answered in her own language. But I am afraid,” adds the Dean, “the women in this country will scarce pardon this story.”
Throughout the majority of Irish castles there is the same uniformity of plan; their extent seldom exceeded a single square tower of three or four stories, the confined and gloomy chambers of which were lighted through a massive wall by narrow loop holes. An intrenched or walled plot of ground called the bawn surrounded or adjoined the tower, into which the cattle were driven at night to
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secure them from wolves, or the almost as rapacious neighbouring chieftains. The bawn also afforded protection, in times of danger, to the followers of the owner of the castle; and, in the internal feuds which continually harassed and distracted Ireland, when one chief invaded or appeared with a hostile disposition on the possessions of another, the clan immediately fled with their cattle to the bawn of their lord’s castle for refuge.
1. By force not law men held uncertain wealth,
And neighbouring chiefs for plunder or for pride,
Their vassals mustering on each other’s powers,
Waged petty war! Hence all those tall remains
Of former strength that mid our verdant fields
Stand venerable!
In the square tower, tradition points out, and probably with correctness, the upper story as the best or state apartment; for each story seldom contained more than one room, having, in the thickness of the wall, recesses for sleeping in.
Such were the dwellings of the leading men of Ireland for nearly four centuries, many of which were attacked and ruined during the turbulent reign of Elizabeth. [34] The fact that the massive walls of a dismal tower afforded but feeble protection against an enemy before whose cannon the embattled keep crumbled into ruins, seems to have given rise to a new species of national architecture, modelled upon the ancient English manor-house, retaining, however, the same solidity of style as these castles, which, about the year 1600, began to be disused, from the faith in their security being
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destroyed. Of the taste at this period the town of Kilmallock is perhaps the finest specimen in Ireland, that town
most fayre, that long a building was,
Where now, God wot, there growes nothing but grasse,
The stones lye waste, the walles seeme but a shell
Of little worth, where once a prince might dwell.
Scattered through the south of Ireland the walls of these castellated houses, or courts as they are sometimes called, may be seen in the proportion to the single tower of one to four, the commanding situations selected for which still implied a feeling of insecurity. Their most peculiar feature is a large marble chimney piece, about twelve feet in height and ten in breadth, well carved, and generally bearing the date of the building and initials of the builder’s name, the family arms and a religious or historical inscription. These houses gave place, in the reign of William III., to the heavy red brick mansion, with its avenues of venerable trees, which is now the hospitable abode of the resident landholder, or the forsaken and neglected patrimony of the absentee.
So numerous are abandoned edifices in Ireland, that they keep alive a train of melancholy ideas in the mind of the traveller. They who reared these piles and filled their rooms with mirth, who gave plenty and employment to the poor, are now in their tombs; and their living successors, dead to their patriotism, dwell in other lands, and leave the home of their ancestors a wilderness, where long rows of majestic oak and elm appear destined only for the axe. Every one must wish such absentees could be made to reside in their own country - to enrich it with their fortunes, ornament it with their taste, improve the morals of the people by their example, refine them by their politeness, and protect them by their authority - then might we hope to see the laws respected, the rich beloved, and Ireland tranquil and happy. [35]
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